On
Monday June 21st 1954 I had my first ever flight in an aircraft. It lasted
one hour. My instructor, Flying Officer Lough called a ‘familiarization
flight’ In other words he didn’t do much more than take me on a sightseeing
trip around the town of Claresholm. I didn’t get to touch the controls.
However, by Friday he had shown me the effect of the controls and had me
doing easy things such as gentle turns, climbs, and descents.
By July 12th we were doing touch and go landings, That’s when the aircraft
is landed, then without stopping on the runway, the flaps are retracted,
power applied and the machine flown off the runway, then you do it all
over again. Sure keeps a young fellow busy.
On July 13th I was given my first flight check, the PCH, or in English,
the preliminary clear hood test. It didn’t go too well because I had trouble
finding the runway for landing! I was always too high. F/O Layman, the
testing officer must have had the crap scared out of him because it took
a while to figure out what I was doing wrong. I always thought the runway
was closer than it actually was. I'm farsighted! When I thought the
wheels were about to touch the runway I was actually about ten feet above
it. By that time the aircraft had slowed to the stall and dropped out of
the sky to a very hard landing. It took another instructor, F/O Bill Harker,
to figure that out
Anyway, that meant more training then another PCH with F/O Ingrid. I
didn’t scare him too badly so he had my Flight Commander, F/O Gleddie take
me up for a forty minute solo check.
So now it is late afternoon on July 30th, 1954, a Friday, and Barclay
is authorized to fly her Majesties Harvard aircraft # 20340 all by himself.
Oh God!
The good thing is, it’s late Friday afternoon, which means nearly all
other aircraft are on the ground, and I have the sky to myself. That is
good because I'm certain I’ll need every bit of air space available.
The tower gives me runway 32. The wind is almost calm and there is no
other traffic. Carefully, really carefully I carry out the required engine
checks, the pre-take-off checks, then, with “340, you are cleared to take-off.”
in my headset, I taxi MY aircraft on to the runway. I even remember to
lock the tail wheel when I'm sure MY aircraft is straight on the runway.
I'm not sure what happened next, but apparently I did most everything
right. I got the a/c off the runway, touched the brakes, retracted the
wheels, released the mixture control and then turn to my left until I'm
flying downwind and parallel to the runway. So far so good, but, now I've
got to LAND this thing! Keeping an eye on the runway I carry out the pre-landing
checks. Undercarriage down, fuel set to main tanks, check brakes check
that the wheels are actually down and the indicator lights are green, put
mixture control to rich. By now I have turned crosswind to the runway and
have descended to 500 feet. Whoa! I'm too close to where I must turn again
to get lined up with the runway. My turn onto final approach is too wide
so I need to turn more to the left then back to the right to get lined
up. Now sort of on my final approach, I lowered some flap, reduced the
power, and LANDED the son-of-a-bitch, mostly on the runway!
I remember that the wind had come up and created a crosswind-landing
situation for me so that when the wheels touched, one was on the runway
and the other on the grass to the right side of the runway. Oh, I forgot
the best part! In a Harvard, when the tail is on the ground, as it is in
a landing situation, the pilot is only able to see things beside the a/c,
but nothing straight ahead.
It was a good landing. My flight commander said so himself. Later, when
I did flight testing, I realized that Gleddie was probably sweating bricks
until I put that Harvard back safely on the ground. But there is more!
There is a tradition at flying schools, certainly military, and also
probably at civil schools, where people who have just flown their first
solo flight are ‘initiated’ by having their tie cut off close to the throat,
then doused with a pail of water, preferably cold water! When I taxied
out for my solo trip the flight room was empty of all the other students,
except one. I think that guy was Helge Aas, a Norwegian fellow. When he
realized what I was about to attempt, that bugger ran to our quarters and
alerted everyone he could find.
I was ambushed when I returned to the flight room. I thought everybody
had gone for the day so I did not expect a welcoming party. Fortunately
all that happened to me was to have my tie cut off. They couldn’t find
a pail! But the other guys had a better idea. They escorted me back to
our barracks and threw me in the shower fully clothed and turned the cold
water on! At Claresholm the water came from an artesian well. Really cold.
I'm glad it was July.
There was one consolation; on Fridays at our station the evening meal
at the mess was steak, french-fries, and banana cream pie! All you could
eat. On this memorable day my logbook showed a total flight time of 26
hours and 5 minutes, 15 minutes of which was SOLO.
The next day I sent my parents a telegram advising them of the fact
of my solo. Unfortunately the message read ‘sold Friday. They received
it Jul 31 at 4:22 PM. This telegram is in my logbook if you want to see
it.
On January 11 1955 I was nearing the end of my training on Harvards.
This meant that I would undergo another flight test, the dreaded Harvard
Handling test. In other words I would be tested on everything I had been
taught so far, take off, landing, instrument, emergency landing, and aerobatics.
I was second up that winter morning. At 9; 30 F/O Grady told me to get
the a/c, #20341, warmed up and be ready to go. A few minutes later he came
rushing to the a/c with a cup of coffee in one hand and the morning newspaper
in the other. Aboard and hooked up to intercom He explained that he’d not
had coffee yet today, so I was to get our a/c off the ground and proceed
to the training area. He said, after he’d had a cigarette with his coffee
and had read the paper, we could do the flight test. But in the meantime
I was free to practice whatever I wanted.
I believed him! I spent an hour going through everything that I knew
was on the test. Towards the end of the hour I was anxious to get on with
the test. Then Grady came on the intercom telling me to head for home,
test was over! But one element of the test was missing; the forced landing
after engine failure. I headed for base, being careful to make sure our
path would take us close to Granum aerodrome, which was a few miles east
of base and used for touch and goes.
Almost unexpectedly, the engine quit. I tried moving the throttle but
Grady was holding it closed. So now I knew he wanted me to go through the
whole exercise, which I did. Check everything while keeping the a/c at
a safe gliding speed and at the same time look for somewhere to land. As
luck had it, we were directly over Granum! But on my gliding final approach
to the runway, I was too high; I was going to miss the damn runway!.
Only one thing to do; sideslip, which I did. Made the runway and, now
that the throttle was mine, overshot and headed for Claresholm. Walking
away from the a/c Grady told me that it was a good test, except, in his
opinion I had severely overstressed the airframe during the emergency landing!
He let me think about it for several steps, then said, if it had been a
genuine emergency all the RCAF was concerned about was the safety of its
aircrew, so I was not to worry. A while later I watched as my a/c was hooked
to a tug and taken away for an inspection to determine what if any damage
I had caused. By this time, having passed the flight test, I didn’t give
a damn! All the testing was behind me.
On Saturday February 12th 1955 I had my last ever flight in a Harvard.
It was a 2-plane formation flight. I was with F/O Dodd. The flight lasted
one hour and 30 minutes. I now had 180 hours and 55 minutes flying time,
of which 42 hours were solo.
A few days later, by now a commissioned officer, a Pilot Officer no
less, I departed Claresholm for the last time on my way to #1-Advanced
Flying School Saskatoon, arriving there early in the morning of Saturday
February 19th 1955. When I got off the train I was wearing a raincoat and
the temperature was –40 Fahrenheit! Holy shit was it cold
